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Posts published by Jennifer Walzer

If you’ve been reading my recent posts, you know that I have a lot on my plate, mostly because I’m due with my first child any day. You also might remember that I recently hired a public relations firm, Springboard, to help us increase our brand awareness in the online data backup/recovery market. Since we are almost done with our three-month trial period, I thought I would share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

Designate an internal champion:
You are going to need someone to handle requests from the P.R. agency and to manage deadlines. Because I don’t have a vice president of marketing, this role has fallen to me. And because my P.R. team is keeping us quite busy, I’m finding myself spending at least one to two hours a day either speaking with reporters and analysts or writing up new material to share our story. I’ve had entire days consumed by P.R. work. Thank goodness for my business adviser, Jeff, who has been helping me.

When you’re pregnant, people ask a lot of questions: When are you due? Boy or girl? Do you have a name picked out? And when you are a pregnant business owner, people want to know how exactly you’re going to handle everything.
Truthfully? I have no idea.

Despite my expanding stomach, I don’t think the reality of motherhood has really hit me yet. I know my entire life is going to change, but I’m not sure anyone can be totally prepared for how much things will change. Between figuring out how to remove myself from my business for a few months and taking childbirth classes at night, it has been a full schedule. And because I procrastinated on changing my name to my new married name, I’m also finding myself spending many hours at the courthouse getting approval to make Walzer my new middle name (had I known how time consuming the process would be, I would have hyphenated my names).

You may remember one of my posts from last year in which I talked about not needing a public relations firm because we were getting plenty of media coverage organically. Well, as I looked back on that coverage recently, I realized that it was more focused on me as a business owner than on the company and the team. And right now, I’m so busy building the company, training new employees, and managing my pregnancy that I haven’t had time to seek speaking and interview opportunities.

I’ve also realized that while we have an excellent story to tell, we haven’t collected enough of the evidence. We have more than 500 clients, many of whom have recommended us to other companies. However, we have yet to get their feedback in writing. As I’ve been building my sales force, I’ve realized that the sales people need these case studies as tools to help share our story.

So I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s time we get some outside help from a P.R. firm that knows how to promote our brand. I need to stop trying to do everything myself and start surrounding myself with experienced professionals. I have had several discussions with my business adviser to make sure that I find the right firm for our company.

Last week, I wrote a post about the adoption of our core values. I explained that we created awards that honor employees who best demonstrate those values and give us extra incentive to deliver great service. I also explained that I’d asked everyone to rate their team members — on a scale of 1 to 10 — on how well they align with our values, a process that helped me identify a couple of employees who really weren’t a good fit. I think it’s fair to say that some readers reacted negatively to this post.

It was tough for me to read some of those comments. In retrospect, I think three things happened: in the interest of keeping the post at a manageable length, I left out some information that I probably should have included. I also think I could have been clearer in explaining some aspects of how we do things. But I also have to admit that this experience shows something I rarely forget – I’m still learning in my role as chief executive.

Last year, I was accepted into the E.O./M.I.T. Entrepreneurial Masters Program. The first session focused on employees, culture and communication. Our goal was to take the systems we learned in class and implement them in our respective companies over the next 12 months. I’ve recently returned from the program’s second annual session where we evaluated our performance.

The first thing I did when I returned a year ago was to hold a team retreat at which we agreed upon seven core values on which the company would operate (they emphasized customer service, teamwork, integrity, etc.). We posted these core values on the wall, and we agreed to adhere to them on a daily basis. In addition, we created awards to honor team members who consistently demonstrate these values.

There is a box located in our team room area for members to nominate someone for representing a core value during a given week. Our intern, David, collects the nominations and announces them to the entire company every Friday during our team meeting. At the end of the quarter, the person who has the most nominations for each core value gets a financial bonus, and his or her name goes up on the wall for the quarter. In addition, we have an overall award given to the team member who receives the most nominations across the board. The awards have given us extra incentive to help each other and to show our appreciation for superior service. But it also did something else. It made it more obvious who is and who isn’t a good fit for the company.

I’ve always had a passion for sales even though I really never had a sales background. When I redefined my role as chief executive last year, I made the decision that I could no longer be the only one responsible for sales if we were to start scaling this company aggressively. This meant that I needed to start relying on others to make these deals happen.

So I started to build a sales team, and for the last year and a half that “team” consisted of a hard-working, energetic young woman who really got what we were all about as a company and was very good at communicating it to prospects. Unfortunately, she confided to me, she wasn’t sure that she wanted a career in sales. We tried to figure out how she could dabble in other areas, but I had to make it clear that until she brought in enough revenue to cover her salary as well as find her replacement, I couldn’t just move her into a different role. When a non-sales opportunity opened at another company, she saw the chance to try something else.

O.K., I’ve been having a little trouble keeping up with my blogging lately, so let me give you a quick recap of what I’ve been doing this year.

Let’s see, I got married, I spent three weeks on my honeymoon, I shifted our sales strategy to go after larger clients, I started working on a new marketing plan to reach those clients, I moved the company to larger office space to accommodate our growth, and along the way, I learned a surprising lesson: morning sickness doesn’t strike only in the morning.

Yes, that’s right. Brad and I are expecting. And now you know why I’ve been struggling to keep up with my blogging.

My last post created a bit of a stir. As you may recall, I’m subletting new office space and was referred to a firm that specializes in real estate law by another lawyer who had done some personal work for me. My legal needs were simple: I just needed a lawyer to review a standard sublease agreement given to me by my new landlord. The post recounted how the real estate lawyers requested a $2,500 retainer and said that the total fee probably wouldn’t exceed that amount. In the end, however, the fee was $6,450 — including $60 for sending me this courtesy e-mail: “I hope everything is O.K. Take your time.”

But here’s the punchline: After my post was published, my landlord informed me that he had paid his lawyer $1,100 to draft and revise the agreement that my lawyers reviewed.

Predictably, my initial post unleashed a wave of lawyer-bashing. A few commenters also took me to task. A lot of good points were made and I’d like to address a few of them:

At my company, we try so hard to provide great customer service that I sometimes forget that bad customer service exists. And then I hired a lawyer.

As you may recall, we’re in the process of moving our offices. I was looking for a real estate lawyer to review the lease for our new space. Another lawyer I know, who’s done some personal work for me, offered to introduce me to the head partner of a firm that specializes in real estate law. I went to see him.

When I wrote a post about our coming office move from Midtown to Downtown, I got a few responses asking why anyone would start a business in a place as expensive as New York City, let alone commit to bigger and more expensive space in the city. Here’s what Frank wrote:

Why would you base a .com company in what is arguably the most expensive city in the country? I can’t imagine that you spend a lot of face time with clients, and even if you do, I can’t imagine that the majority are located in NYC. You’re paying triple what you should be paying for basic office space anywhere else. Your salaries are at least double what they would be anywhere else. You have put yourself at a distinct competitive disadvantage by having such huge rent and payroll expenses. Why not locate your company in an affordable city?

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You're the Boss offers an insider's perspective on small-business ownership. It gives business owners a place where they can compare notes, ask questions, get advice, and learn from one another's mistakes. The blog also offers analysis of policy issues, and suggests investing tips.